Archive for November, 2010

One of the most distressing aspects about domestic violence is how isolated victims can feel from the rest of the world. Even if there are family and friends who love and care about the victim, she may still feel there is no one on earth who understands what she is going through, especially if no one steps up to intervene on her behalf.

For example, after I recently wrote about my own experience of domestic violence at the hands of my mother, I received an email from a reader saying, “I have just read your column…and it has opened up old wounds. I am currently in tears because I lived my own hell that I never thought any other child experienced at the hand of a mother.”

Living in an abusive relationship is a lonely life. There are threats of more violence if the abuse is spoken about to others, yet even when the silence is not broken, the violence continues. It is a lose/lose situation and the silence only allows the violence to continue.

When someone says that domestic violence is a “private matter,” they are completely and utterly wrong. This reckless statement is intended to absolve the speaker of responsibility to help the person being abused and to hold the abuser accountable. Moreover, dismissing domestic abuse as a “private matter” keeps the victim in her prison of silence. No leader should EVER say domestic violence is a “private matter.”

If there is one reason above all others that I am a part of the “Break the Silence, Say No to Violence” event this Thursday in Guyana, South America, at the Georgetown Cricket Club Ground, Bourda, it is because I know what it is like to suffer in silence. I know what it is like to feel isolated from the rest of the world in my own little hell and to believe there is no one else who can or will raise a finger to help me.

How many women suffer in silent torment today in Guyana? Hundreds? Thousands? Even if it is just one (though we know it is far more), that is one too many. Life is too short to spend even one day being subjected to blows, covering up the bruises, listening to the venomous words or being beaten down emotionally by psychological abuse.

We never know how many more days we have left to spend on this earth, let us not waste even one precious day in the arms of an abuser.

If you are in Guyana and a victim of domestic abuse, come to the “Break the Silence, Say No to Violence” event on Thursday and see that you are not alone. There will be others to stand with you. I will be there to stand with you. If you are a survivor of domestic abuse, come and find support and healing. If you know someone who is being abused, offer to bring that person to this event as a way of taking a stand against the evil of domestic violence.

If you are neither a victim nor a survivor, nor do you know anyone who is a victim or survivor, it is important that you come to this event, too. The only way to initiate real change – the only way to stop seeing headlines of women murdered – is for every single person of excellent heart to take a stand against domestic violence.

I have already had many people give verbal commitments to be in attendance. I appreciate this since I have not asked these friends to come; they are coming to support this cause because they know just how important it is to stop the maiming and killing.

I have been writing about domestic violence since 2005 and yet today the situation is worse than ever. Multiple times a week there are headlines with women who die horrible deaths. This past week a 62-year-old woman was hammered to death by her own son. The time for idle talk is long past. It is time for action now.

This Thursday, the day of the big event, is the Thanksgiving Holiday in the US, a day where families gather, feast and spend the day together in thankfulness for all they have.

I have spent every single year of my life with family on Thanksgiving, but this year, I chose to spend it in here in Guyana so I can do my part to find a way to curb the violence.

Thursday is also International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. In other words, when Guyana stands together at the “Break the Silence, Say No to Violence” event – we are not alone – there will be others around the world standing in solidarity with us.

We will join our voices with brothers and sisters around the world to vehemently reject violence against women.

We cannot bring back the ones we have lost to domestic violence over the years, but we can take a stand together this week to stop the onslaught against women. Please make your commitment to come to “Break the Silence, Say No to Violence” on Thursday, if you can, or attend another similar event in your area. Bring your best friend – bring all of your friends. Bring your family members. Bring everyone – and let us do this together.

It is time to do more than just say, “We have to stop the killing.” It is time to put our words into actions. Come stand with the victims and survivors this Thursday. Look them in the eyes and tell them, “You are not alone.”

I recently posed this question on my Facebook page: It is my opinion that men who seek relations with young girls actually just want the sex without the rest of what comes with a grown woman like a thinking mind, common sense and a full knowledge of the respect due to a female. In most cases, when the young girl grows up and starts thinking for herself, she is cast aside, too. What do you think about this creepy phenomenon?

I was more than a bit surprised when there were some – male and female – who defended this pedophilic behavior. I’m going to be brutally honest and say that if any stinky old man touched one of my daughters at such a young age, my fury would explode to the point that the world would think Armageddon had begun. There’s no way that sick pervert would escape justice.

Which brings me to what I really want to talk about in this column; mothers who allow stepfathers and boyfriends – or anyone, for that matter – to molest their young daughters. If there is anything in the world more unnatural than a man wanting to have sex with a young girl, it is a mother who will knowingly allow it to happen.

It truly baffles me that society will look at sex between two consenting adults who happen to be of the same gender as unnatural, yet the heinous act of raping a little girl is not viewed with the repulsion it deserves. In fact, all types of homophobic rhetoric is tossed about freely (which is a shame), yet when someone talks of a man who has sex with little girls, it is almost wistfully stated as if to say, “wouldn’t that be nice.”

On my scale of good and bad, 1 – 100, the best of people rating a 100 and the worst of people rating a one, a man who has sex with little girls ranks a big zero in my book. The pedophile is the worst of the worst, the scum of the earth, a person who makes thieves and corrupt politicians look like angels. That any mother could allow such filth to touch her precious daughter is utterly incomprehensible.

I have been told that it is for the sake of money that mothers allow this atrocity. Either she wants that man in her life for the money to live and eat or she allows – or even sends – her daughter to seek out men with whom she can have sex and bring the money back home.

Of all the ways in the world there are to make money, why would any mother choose this loathsome one?

In fact, as pointed out by an acquaintance of mine, if that mother has no qualms with using sex as a means for making a living, then she should be the one to do it – not her little girl. That little girl should be playing with dolls, doing her homework and giggling with other girls her age. Not being inappropriately compromised by a rank old man.

What I find interesting is that this ugly circle starts when fathers with little girls want to abandon their responsibilities at home. Mom is left to care for children without an education, a solid job, or family with the ability to help her. So mom puts her little girl out to be prostituted or she takes a lover to take care of her, but he wants to use the little girl too.

In short, dad reneges on his responsibilities with his little girl to have fun instead, and in the process, another male is having “fun” with his little girl. Now that is one very ugly circle.

Moreover, this circle has become so popular, that it is now common to see young girls dressing to attract older men, in hopes of scoring some money or an escape from poverty.

If those older men had any moral fiber in them at all, they would send those young girls home to do their homework.

That would be the honorable thing to do. Then those little girls would have no reason to be prostituting themselves and could go back to being little girls.

Instead, the men use these girls, maybe for a night, maybe for a few weeks or maybe for a couple years, but when they are done using that girl, she is discarded like so much trash. After all, let us be honest here, men who use little girls or grown women for nothing more than sex, give not a passing thought to the fact that she is a person, a human.

At the end of the day, I still cannot comprehend a mother who allows a man to rape her daughter. Isn’t it bad enough that the rest of the world does not value that little girl? But to have her own mother devalue her precious life, too? There are no more words to further communicate my feelings on this matter. My heart aches for those girls.